


Losses

by Cybra



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-23 14:12:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11991483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cybra/pseuds/Cybra
Summary: Scrooge wakes up in the hospital to find out that the plane he'd been traveling in had crashed and Della is missing.  Hortense demands answers from her brother, but he figures out very quickly that he no longer has the answers she desperately wants.





	Losses

**Author's Note:**

> **A/N:** So this is awful. And mean. And I’m still writing it because I can’t get it out of my head. Very likely not canon compliant, but whatever.
> 
>  **Disclaimer:** _Ducktales_ belongs to the Walt Disney Company.

_“Della?  What are you doing here?  Where’s your brother?”_

_“If I had to guess, probably the bathroom again.  He’s sick as a dog.  Mom’s watching him and the boys while I fill in.”_

_“Ah.  Well then, perhaps we should postpone—”_

_“Please, Uncle Scrooge?  I need to get out of the house for a while.  If you’re that worried, I’ll stay in the plane for this one.  Promise.”_

_“…All right, lass.  Let’s take off.”_

* * *

Opening his eyes was painful, the sharp, throbbing headache objecting to the harsh fluorescent lighting.  The sounds of machinery and the faint _hiss_ of the nasal cannula blowing oxygen into his nostrils helped him orient himself somewhat.  He moved his arm and regretted it as he felt the bite of an IV.

Matilda leaned into his field of view, hand to her breast.  “Oh thank goodness.”

He opened his mouth to speak but Hortense suddenly leaned over him, Matilda hastily moving out of the way.  “Where’s Della?!”

“Della?” he asked, head still swimming with pain.

“Yes!  My daughter!  Your niece!  Where is she?!”

“Hortense, please…” their sister pleaded.

He blinked rapidly, trying to clear from his eyes the spots caused by his head aching that much more in response to her shouting.

Enough of the haze cleared for him to remember just whom he’d been traveling with before he’d ended up here.  He whipped his head to one side, instantly regretting it.  However, his surroundings confirmed what he’d suspected:  He was in a hospital.

“Where’s Della?” he asked.

“That’s what I’m asking _you!”_ his younger sister screeched, grabbing him by the shoulders and forcing him to look at her. “Where’s my daughter?!”

“I don’t know!” he answered, the sound of his own voice the equivalent of his old pickaxe pounding into the earth. “We were going to take off, and…and…”

“And what?!”

He struggled, trying to find the answer but coming up blank.  Something bad had happened.  He wouldn’t be in the hospital if it hadn’t.  But if Della wasn’t here, too…

“What happened to her?!” his sister screamed, echoing his thoughts.

“Mrs. Duck,” an unfamiliar voice protested, “you’re upsetting my pat—”

“Your patient is my stupid brother who promised he’d keep my children safe and couldn’t even manage that!”  Hortense turned back to him, tears streaming down her face.  “Why did I even trust you with them?!”

“That’s unfair,” Matilda argued.  Scrooge could tell just by the sound of her voice that she was wringing her hands.

He took a shuddering breath.  “Can I at least know what you know happened?”

It might jog his memory, help him figure out where his niece had gone, give them _somewhere_ to start looking for her.

Hortense stormed out of view, Matilda taking her place.

“Your plane went down two hundred miles off-course three weeks ago.  They found you in the co-pilot’s seat, unconscious, and you’ve been in a coma since then.”

“And Della?” he asked, desperate.

“No sign of her,” Matilda answered softly.

The sound of three babies crying somewhere outside the room drew Scrooge’s attention.  He turned his head towards the sounds.

Della’s boys had been without their mother for three weeks?  It should’ve been a simple weekend excursion, not… _this._

“Now you tell us what happened,” Hortense growled.

He took a shuddering breath.  “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean ‘I don’t know’?!”

“Mrs. Duck, please,” the man, obviously a doctor, protested. “If you continue to antagonize my patient, I’ll have Security throw you out.”

“My daughter is missing, and he’s the only one who knows what happened!  My grandchildren don’t have their mother because he took her away from them!”

“Hortense, stop it right now!”

Matilda didn’t raise her voice often.  She was the most sweet-tempered of the three siblings, but the legendary McDuck temper hadn’t entirely passed her over.  Her starting to lose it caused both of her siblings to freeze.

The middle sibling took a deep breath, released it, and then addressed the doctor, “Is he all right?”

“His broken ribs are healing fine, and the latest CT scan showed the swelling in his brain has gone down significantly.  Some memory loss is to be expected in any head injury or coma case.  I would’ve been surprised if he wasn’t missing _some_ time given the state he arrived in.”

“Will he get it back?” Hortense demanded.

“In time, possibly, but there’s also a good chance that he won’t.”

His younger sister didn’t even bother to use words:  Her choked sobs expressed her despair more than well enough.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Duck.”

“You’re not the one who needs to be sorry,” she hissed.

Scrooge looked desperately to her.  “Hortense, I swear I will do whatever I can to—”

“You’ll hire the cheapest people to look for her, you mean,” she snapped.

He stared, stunned.  He’d never been close to Hortense due to her having grown up without him in her life, but he’d never thought she’d think _that._   Yes, he could be the cheapskate and turnip-squeezer everyone had accused him of being since he was young, but that was business; this was family.  Did she really think he valued money over the lives of his own kin?  After all, he’d left to seek his fortune to make a better life for them in the first place.

Or was he just making excuses, just lying to himself?  Had he ever really shown his family that he valued them or had they only seen the tight-fisted trillionaire?  Did the fact that he’d _lost_ Della and didn’t even remember it prove that he was more focused on his goals than the people he strove to achieve them for?

 _‘I could’ve tried harder to convince Della to delay the expedition, but I didn’t.  I just took her at her word that everything would be fine,’_ he mentally accused himself. _‘I should’ve…I should’ve…!’_

“I wish you’d never come back to Glasgow.”  Hortense grabbed his bill and forced him to lock eyes with her.  “Stay away from my family.  I’m not letting you take any more of them.  Do you hear me?”

He swallowed, unable to find words.  His mouth had gone dry, and his throat felt like someone was strangling him.

“Hortense…” Matilda protested softly.

“Let’s go, Matilda.”  She released his bill and stomped out of the room.

Scrooge watched her leave before looking desperately towards the sister he’d been closest to.  “Matilda, you know I would never—”

Her look of both pity and sorrow silenced his plea for her forgiveness.  True, she was the sister he’d been _closest_ to, but that didn’t mean they’d been _close._   She’d known him a few years longer than Hortense, but for the most part he’d been words on a page to her.

She sighed and walked out the door after their sister.

He stared after them, ignoring the doctor who was saying something about pain management.  Instead he closed his eyes, turned his head away from the door, and muttered, “Just do what you have to do and get out.”

* * *

His driver picked him up from the hospital.  No one was at the mansion to greet him aside from servants as he limped his way inside, leaning heavily on his cane.  No one came to visit and no one answered their phones when he called, so he stopped trying.

They never came back: not his family and not his memories of what happened to Della.

And it was all his fault.


End file.
